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At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Digital Life initiative endeavours to create high-quality 3D digital models of living organisms – especially those on the brink of extinction. This modern Noah’s Ark is just one of the ways humanity is digitising a world in ecological peril. But what does this impulse, combined with the rise of ‘simulation theory’, say about us? Is the idea that we can digitally preserve and simulate biology, or that we already exist in a computer-simulated reality, merely a way to comfort ourselves as we drive our world further toward ecological collapse? In a collage pulled together from the world of digitisation, the experimental short Our Ark ponders whether these notions of parallel simulated worlds are a means of offering ourselves ‘solace in the face of paralysis’.
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Architecture
West Africa was once an architectural laboratory. Is it time for a revival?
12 minutes
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Work
A Swedish expat in the Philippines wonders: what’s up with people sleeping at work?
14 minutes
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Biography and memoir
The unique life philosophy of Abdi, born in Somalia, living in the Netherlands
29 minutes
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Cognition and intelligence
What’s this buzz about bees having culture? Inside a groundbreaking experiment
8 minutes
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Earth science and climate
The only man permitted in Bhutan’s sacred mountains chronicles humanity’s impact
22 minutes
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Cosmology
The Indian astronomer whose innovative work on black holes was mocked at Cambridge
13 minutes
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Art
‘If you’re creative, why can’t you create a solution?’ One artist’s imaginative activism
17 minutes
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The ancient world
An ancient Roman’s hilarious (and perhaps relatable) response to a social snub
2 minutes
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Ethics
For Iris Murdoch, selfishness is a fault that can be solved by reframing the world
6 minutes